


Genrika the Spy

by Orockthro



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Irrelevant Gift Exchange, M/M, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 22:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orockthro/pseuds/Orockthro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shaw looks at her, but hides it by checking the car mirrors. It’s a good trick. Gen thinks she’ll be able to use that when she starts to drive. “You want to be a spy, right?" Shaw asks. “Consider this your first undercover mission. Learn about your situation. Recon work.”</p><p>(Or, it's her boarding school's winter break, and Finch's ward comes back to the nest to make some observations. And maybe have a good Christmas, too. Gift Exchange fic for tsolvang.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genrika the Spy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tsolvang](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tsolvang).



> Happy holidays, tsolvang! I hope you don't mind utter fluff, because that's what this turned into.

Gen signs her name as “Jen” on the school forms. She’ll be one of a half dozen Jennifers, not Genrika, not an outsider, not an orphaned immigrant kid.

“Are you sure about this?” Mr. Finch asks when he looks over her paperwork, but Gen thinks that’s rich seeing as he introduced himself to the principal as Mr. Partridge.

“First rule of being a spy, right? Don’t let them know who you are.”

Mr. Finch looks like he wants to argue with her some more, but Gen doesn’t care because she’s right. He knows it, too, because he signs the bottom of the sheet with his alias’s signature and folds it into perfect thirds. And when the principal comes back into the room, he slides it across the table with a crisp check laid on top.

The principal, Tanja Jones according to the shiny brass nameplate, smiles real big and shakes Gen’s hand. “Welcome, Jennifer--”

“It’s Jen.”

“Welcome, Jen.”

But even though it’s a fancy boarding school with fancy sweaters and fancy backpacks that all have little silver pins with the school’s emblem stuck on them, it turns out they won’t let her stay for winter break. It’s against some policy about ‘family time,’ and Gen kicks the wall as the other kids file out of the room, excited.

She doesn’t tell Mr. Finch or John, not that she thinks they’ll kick her out or anything, but she doesn’t need to be babied. She’ll just pretend to leave with one of the other girl’s families, then sneak back into the dorm building through the Gym when all the teachers are gone. She’s good at keeping out of sight.

“Hey, kid.”

Shaw is standing on the sidewalk next to a car, and blocking the path she was going to use to fake-out the Principal.

She doesn’t run towards her or anything; that would be immature. But she does walk really fast, and maybe goes in for a hug, but that’s just because Shaw’s cool, not because she needs the hug or anything.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says against Shaw’s side. She can feel a gun holster there, and that’s pretty badass. “I was going to be sooo bored.”

“Let’s go. Finch has a tree the size of Mount Everest.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Gen fiddles with the pin on her backpack while they drive. “They don’t want me back at school for three weeks. That’s a long time.”

“You’ll be fine, kid. Finch bought a new house and everything, decked it out with a bunk bed.”

That isn’t what she means. She lived with a cocaine addict who never paid the rent on time before Shaw knocked on her door. She can take care of herself.

Shaw looks at her, but hides it by checking the car mirrors. It’s a good trick. Gen thinks she’ll be able to use that when she starts to drive. “You want to be a spy, right?" Shaw asks. “Consider this your first undercover mission. Learn about your situation. Recon work.”

Gen decides she can live with that.

The tree _is_ huge, just like the house, which is a suburban two-and-a-half story with a three car garage. Shaw pulls the car in and parks it next to a motorcycle and lets Gen walk in the door first. The tree might not be Mount Everest huge, but it’s the biggest Christmas tree she’s seen in person, decked in white lights in the vaulted ceiling entryway. There are wrapped presents under it, and red stockings perfectly lined up along the wall over the electric fireplace. It’s like something out of a freaking “Come to America,” magazine, with Mr. Finch and John smiling by the fire, Bear at their feet.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gen says.

Shaw smirks. “Have fun,” she says, and waggles her fingers at Gen before she disappears out the back.

That night, after Mr. Finch makes her a huge mug of hot cocoa with tiny little marshmallows out of a bag from the pantry, not the cocoa packets themselves, because apparently those are, “freeze dried and devoid of taste,” he shows her what will be her bedroom. And when he shuts the door behind him, she opens her backpack and pulls out a notebook. She has a dedicated pen for it, and everything, which makes it feel very official. It’s purple.

“Mr. Finch,” she writes, and she underlines his name twice.

  * Aliases

  * Very rich

  * Picky

  * Nice




On the page opposite she starts a line for John, too. “Bought Mr. Finch a very large Christmas tree,” she scrawls, before crawling under the pink and white plaid covers and falling asleep.

“What’s my name here,” she asks over Fruit Loops. John brought the box of cereal in with a load of groceries after she got up. Harold gave her oatmeal and a glass of orange juice earlier while John was still out, but she passed on that. It looked even grosser than what her grandfather used to make. “I mean, my last name.”

Mr. Finch freezes on the spot. “Pardon?”

“My alias. As your daughter, your niece, whatever. You’ve got to have a story, right, so the neighbors don’t think you kidnapped me? So what’s my name?”

John answers, his face all stiffened up. “Jennifer Allnut. The niece of Harry Allnut.” It takes her a second to put “Harry” together with “Harold.” American names are still a little weird.

She takes a bite of the Fruit Loops. They’ve gotten soggy, but she likes them that way, with the bright colors staining the milk. “And we’re all a family, then.” The little pink ones seem to bleed off the most color, leaving them pale outliers once they’ve been soaked and stripped.

Mr. Finch (Uncle Harry) clears his throat. “Yes.” He and John don’t look at each other, and she realizes she didn’t ask what his name was.

“And the mission?”

There’s a long pause. “I’m sorry?”

“You guys help people. Who are you helping now? Do they have kids? Is that why you need me?”

John looks at her funny, and she can’t read his expression. She wishes Shaw were here. Shaw would tell her what was going on.

“I’m sorry if there was some confusion,” Mr. Finch says, and his face scrunches up under his glasses. “We’re not... using you.”

“It’s okay.” She slurps up a spoonful of soggy Fruit Loops. “It’s not the first time.”

It’s kinda funny how uncomfortable he looks. “No, it’s not. Genrika, you’re here because you’re a little girl without any family in this country. You should have a proper Christmas. You’re my responsibility--”

“Don’t pop a vein, okay. I get it.”

Finch sighs. "This is getting us nowhere. Perhaps another approach is in order. Would you rather see the symphony or go to the Natural History Museum,"

She shrugs, downs her breakfast, and pockets one of the blueberry Poptarts John left out on the counter.

And because apparently he's out to hit every Christmas cliche there is, he adds, "Of course there's always skating at the Rockefeller Center. I'm sure John would take you." John, in turn, goes wide eyed and very still. He seems to do that a lot.  

"Is Shaw coming?"

"Ms. Shaw is otherwise occupied during the day, but she'll be back for dinner."

Gen wishes she was out doing spy stuff with Sam rather than stuck looking at stuffed polar bears, but she's undercover after all, so she sucks it up. Besides, some of the stuff in the museum is actually pretty cool. She likes the room with the asteroids in it. Plus, she gets to watch John’s face get kinda mushy afterwards when Mr. Finch says, “We have a reservation: the Allnut family,” at the fancy restaurant. For an undercover mission, this is pretty cake.

Shaw finds them ten minutes later, just when the appetizers arrive, and helps herself to spinach and cheese something-or-other.

“Ms. Sh--” Finch says, and then he jolts a little. Gen felt the silverware jerk, too: John kicked him under the table. “I mean, Ms. Everson. Glad you could join us.”

Mr. Finch suggests something chickeny sounding, and when it comes she leans over to Shaw and says, “Not Allnut?”

Through a mouthful of duck Sam says, “I’m supposed to be John’s sister.”

“But John’s an Allnut.”

“Yeah. He is _now_.”

Oooh. She eats the chicken-y thing. It’s pretty good.

Sam takes her afterwards, and they go to the gun range. Shaw has a fake ID for her that show’s she’s 12 and everything. She doesn’t let Gen shoot anything, but she lists off the parts and lets her put one together. It’s a little hard, but not any worse than a Rubix cube.

“If Finch asks,” Sam says while watching her slip the clip into place, “We got pedicures.” It makes a lot of sense. The last thing Mr. Finch will do is look at their bare feet.  

“We could negotiate.”

“If you tell Finch, no more gun ranges for you. Spy lesson number two: next time you want to trade, make sure you actually have something to offer.” But she’s smiling, so Gen thinks she isn’t too cheesed off. “How’s it going with them?”

She can’t get the hammer to pull back, which means she’s put it together wrong. She starts to pull the whole thing back apart. Shaw took away all the bullets, but makes her go through the motions of checking that they’re all out anyway. “It’s fine. They don’t come into my room when I don’t want them to. They’re nice. ”

Shaw snorts.

“They are. Mr. Finch bought me a new tape recorder. It’s digital. Way smaller.”

“Where is it?”

Gen smiles. “On Bear’s collar.”

“Good job, kid.”

That night she writes down some new observations under on the Mr. Finch page:

  * Really, _really_ rich

  * Married to John




“So we’re going to do a big Christmas?”

It’s Christmas Eve, the big clock says it’s a quarter to six. John is out doing secret stuff that could either be spy related or present related, but Mr. Finch is on edge, so she’s guessing it’s dangerous. Shaw and Bear are on a walk, so it’s just the two of them.

“We were planning it, yes.” He pauses at the counter, a mug in hand. Something full of cinnamon and oranges. “Did you want that?”

She swings her feet from on top of the stool at the kitchen island twice before putting her hands on her knees and forcing herself to stop. She’s not a kid anymore. She shouldn’t fidget. “I guess. I mean, it would look weird if we didn’t, right? It’s part of the cover story.”

Mr. Finch takes a long sip out of the mug. “We don’t have to.”

"I didn't get you anything," she says.

"You're ten years old, Ms. Zhirova."

"Allnut."

He sighs. "You're meant to receive gifts at this age, not give them."

“I guess.”

“Did-- did you have big Christmases before you moved?”

He means before her mom got arrested. Before her grandfather died. Before she spent hundreds of hours listening to people speak English and erasing her accent by repeating everything they said in the heating ducts of her gang infested apartment complex. Good spies had to fit in. “Not really. We just had dinner. Normal stuff, like macaroni, nothing fancy.”

He sits next to her on the other stool. “I lost my mother at a very young age.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” He pauses. “We never had Christmases like this--” he waves his hand at the ten foot tree, the tinsel hanging off the cabinets, and the pine cones bunched in the corner of every countertop, “either. Would you--” he licks his lips. “I suppose all this does seem a bit silly. I’m afraid I’ve made this ordeal based on expectations of what the Allnuts, a very normal well-to-do family, would do. But the fact is, none of us are exactly normal.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

He looks kinda sad. She’s not used to that. Adults usually either look happy, look like they’re faking being happy, or look pissed off. “Genrika. What you said earlier... you’re not just an obligation. You know that, right?”

The door opens and shuts, and Bear woofs his way down the hall towards them.

“Ms. Shaw, how would you feel about macaroni and cheese for Christmas Eve supper, instead of oysters?”

She grins. “I’ll call John.”

After, when they’ve had bowls of Kraft macaroni and cheese, and two mugs of hot cocoa each, Gen falls asleep on the sofa with one of Shaw’s arms draped around her, and she dreams of her mother back home.

She wakes up earlier than usual. Someone, John probably, tucked her in on the sofa rather than moving her like a baby to her room. Mr. Finch is helping him take down most of the Christmas decorations, even though it’s only Christmas day today. She stays still on the sofa, enjoying the warmth of it. She used to sleep on the sofa back in Russia whenever she got sick or scared; it was nice not to be alone sometimes. Not that she’s a kid anymore. But it’s still nice.

“Hush,” Mr. Finch is saying. “You’ll wake Genrika. Take down that second manger set, will you?”

“This one?”

“Yes. It’s terribly gaudy. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

The tree is still up, the presents are still there, but all the rest is going into boxes. There’s still a line of tinsel and popcorn above Finch’s head, though, that he’s not tall enough to get at.

“You wanted to give her a nice Christmas,” John says, but Harold shakes his head.

“I went about it rather selfishly. She deserves a family, John.”

“She's getting one. These things don't happen overnight. Harold,” John says, and nods his head upwards. There’s something green in all the silver and yellow. She squints. It’s mistletoe.

Mr. Finch blushes a little bit and licks his lips. “Well, at least it’s in character this time,” and Genrika watches as they kiss.

There’s breath at her ear and she smiles as it tickles her. Shaw is on the floor, settled in the space between the sofa and the coffee table with Bear at her side, hidden from view but only just. “Merry Christmas, kid,” she whispers.

Gen makes a mental note to add one more line to her book: family.


End file.
